Heart Healthy Olive Oil Desserts - Book Review

Desserts that are good for your heart is something only thought to be a fantasy, but a Utah woman has developed dessert recipes that are not only healthy, but pleasurable for your taste buds as well.

“Most people believe that in order to maintain a healthy diet you have to sacrifice taste and specifically give up desserts,” said Micki Sannar, author and chef. “I am an advocate of healthy foods but not at the expense of taste.”

The first ever cookbook for desserts made with heart healthy Olive Oil was released on March 1, 2007 by MIKKO International, LLC. The cookbook provides a healthy alternative to popular dessert recipes by lowering the total fat content and eliminating the bad fat from chocolate chip cookies, apple pie, chocolate cake and many other favorite American desserts.

Through trial and error over the past four years, Sannar has reformulated 50 popular dessert recipes with pure olive oil and whole wheat pastry flour – effectively sneaking nutrition in without sacrificing taste or texture.

“I was told over and over again I could not make a pie crust using olive oil,” said Sannar. “This of course sparked a challenge within, and led to the creation of an olive oil pie crust that is extremely flaky and amazing to eat.”

All the recipes are made without butter, shortening, or margarine effectively reducing the cholesterol from added fat to zero. At 77 percent, olive oil contains the highest percentage of monounsaturated fat –good fat – of any fruit or vegetable sourced edible oil. Olive Oil Dessert recipes are a healthy alternative to high fat desserts.

A Mediterranean diet rich with olive oil has long been recognized as a heart healthy diet. Recently, additional studies have proven that olive oil reduces blood pressure and cholesterol, reduces the chance of certain types of cancer and relieves arthritis. To some extent, this may be due to the antioxidants (beta carotene and Vitamin E) and phenolic compounds (tyrosol and hydroxytyrosol).